Haunted 1-10
You, cool and savvy person who knows a thing or two about digital art: Dolly, this is pretty busy. You want to avoid visual clutter so the reader doesn’t get overstimulated. It’s hard to know what to focus on this way. (Also, you did 400 other basic drawing things wrong.)
Me: Ah, yes! I don’t want to reveal it all now, but the visual clutter is intentional and serves at least four different purposes. This is Yuan’s first day in a new city, for example, so I want the reader to feel overstimulated with him. (Also, I know I am doing 400 basic drawing things wrong—I’m still doing my portraiture & anatomy drills—and yes, I can see the perspective :/)
Plus also I want to offer two opportunities for extra credit:
- How many cameos can you recognize? (I’ll drop links in a couple days but do want to give people time to guess first.)
- What unforgivable NYC pedestrian sin is Xiyuan committing that’s causing him to collide with everyone on the sidewalk?
(The next one is *also* a doozy, but again, I’ll try to get it together ASAP!)
I’m in love with the first panel. Flurrrrrrrrrrs.
And ah, city life: to be surrounded by so many people and still feel so isolated. I feel you, Xiyuan.
Man, it was relaxing to paint all those flurs.
Casually rocks up
Panel 1… Ermahgerd! π₯°
Panel 4… Ermahgerd!!! π₯Ίβ€οΈ
Panel 6… Ermahgerd!!!!! π
Panel 7… Faints
Ahem… So I think I’ve recognised 3 simselves plus 7 characters from 3 stories. Although… 2 of the simselves technically also class as minor AE characters… so I’m going to say 9 characters from 4 stories because meta multiverse and stuff π€―
I normally try to be a bit more articulate but I’m fangirling AF right now ππ
YESSSSSS
FEEL THE LOVE
(Other than Ferosh, who’s the other minor AU character?)
(Me! She’s called Pixie and is a complete loon, if the hat didn’t give it away π)
Ahhhh! That makes sense.
Gaaaah! The trio pic π’, then the last pic! πππ So glad you finished BC fanfiction and even show them having HEA here.πMy heart is all stitched up all ways! Daw everyone’s simself chilling together in p6 is all warm and fuzzy!
Also I noticed!! MCPA in full force! π₯° The person who first teased me about his pink shorts has a comment on the pic btw and it goes: “Why can’t Curtis hold a normal bag like Kian?” Haha! π
Damn, who’s this person knocking my boy Curt’s iconic pink look? He is forever wearing pink in my heart.
It’s funny, my American ass was like “I’m going to draw them having coffee,” but you’re right, they’re probably having tea. Micah’s stoked there are no vampires in this universe and he can actually enjoy the tea.
I really love the overstimulation on this one! That storefront pic is a jewel! Or… 15 jewels, each sparkling a different color and frequency. Of course I recognize Cedar Bough and Mercuryfoam’s character. I feel like I should be able to identify the others, but sadly can’t. I think that probably the pedestrian mistake is the long scarf.
Thanks, I’m mostly happy with the first panel too! This guy has to deal with so many colors.
Hahaha—should I redraw your simself? I thought breaking the fourth wall worked for her but do kind of want to move her toward the center a bit.
(Hmm… I just realized a lot of the people reading this aren’t from the U.S., so it might not be apparent to them what he’s doing. If he were in the U.K. or Australia, he would be walking correctly.)
I don’t think we have sidewalk flow here on the West Coast, or Southwest. You can just walk whichever direction on whichever side!
I was happy to see Cedar! I like that you drew her, and breaking the fourth wall is so cool with her!
Oh, good! I guess I’m learning that many people have simselves whose names are different from their own, which should have occurred to me earlier because my own sorta-simself’s name is That One Foxbury Postdoc Who Crawls Through the Air Vents and Has Been Rumored to Eat Students (Oh God Run She’s Right Above You).
I’m one of those people who strictly (and passive-aggressively like a NY-er, lol) enforces pedestrian etiquette no matter where in the country I am, but do acknowledge that some people who grew up in less-extra cities don’t know that there are rules for sidewalk traffic.
I had no idea there were sidewalk rules!
YAAAASSSSSSSS!!!! Okay, first of all, I am trying not to let the fame go to my head but I am in a scene with the one and only Yuan and no paparazzi or pictures please.
The first panel: the scarf blowing in the wind? the slight heel on the shoes? be still my heart. Also, I very much love the voidcritters hanging in front of the store. They look like they are trapped? Did I imagine one of them crying out for help? Maybe that’s why that kid is reaching for them. Just FYI, BBD Vlad would have grabbed the flower shop owner by the neck and demanded that they release all of the voidcritters into Gwendolyn’s custody immediately.
THE PANELS ARE PUZZLE PIECES??!!?!?!?!?!?! stunning.
Yuan side-eyeing school children. perfection.
Plumbob is right, this is some next level multi-verse stuff.
::screams in Cordelia::
Right?! GIVE THE CHILD THE ALTERNATE-UNIVERSE POKΓMON.
But tell me if I’m wrong about this: it’s 1999, so if I remember my BBD lore correctly, Gwendolyn hasn’t been born yet and Alice is still a child. So what if that mother and child are Valeria and Alice, and Alice just coincidentally happens to have the Gwendolyn hair buns that day (and also a purple puffer jacket because my brain really, really wanted to put her in a purple puffer jacket)? brain explosion gif
Enjoy your role as “Person Yuan death glares at because he’s walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk—like a tourist—and running into everyone.”
And YUAN’S CHELSEA BOOTS ARE MY SELF-CARE.
Yes ::replies slowly:: I can do math. LOL. Gwendolyn is totally not born yet (its 2019 in BBD so she would have been born in…gasp…2010…why do I do these attacks on myself?). Yes! I like Alice wearing the buns and for some reason I feel like purple is her color…I donβt know why. Umm did you just casually draw buns that looked more like the updated mesh (FINALLY) or did you just intuitively understand that black hair actually has texture? ::looks at EA, glares::
God, I feel that Yuan would be so insulted by that tourist comment.
I didnβt say this last time but dang your drawing skills are coming in hot in 2021!!!
(Please make it be cannon that at this famed dinner party Yuan is wearing his Chelsea boots while Vlad is in his docs. Please).
Oh, gosh, yes, that was just intuitive hair-drawing. I still have a lot to learn. And I also think I lose points for reminding myself to lighten people’s palms, only to roll into bed Sunday night and realize SHIT I forgot to do the palms. And now I’m split because this way it doesn’t draw attention to my amateur hand geometry.
You’re a transplant, Yuan. Is it legal to link the same Awkwafina video in the comments two pages in a row? Because I’m going to do it anyway. Hopefully he’d be laughing too hard at “No, I’m not from Flushing/I wonder why you think that,” to be offended by the accusation.
As soon as they leave the S-L residence? Yes. They can wear their boots to the graveyard.
Ha. “that child.” Like I don’t even recognize my own kid. Excuse me while I go back to Squeeing.
Haha pop quiz. How many cameos can I recognize. Sadly, just 1. Alice and Gwen.
What pedestrian crime is he committing? I’ll say that he isn’t looking where he’s going. Distracted. At least he isn’t staring at his phone. I prefer my peds to be distracted by life happening outside their phones, so kudos to Yuan.
The panel with the teens makes me feel like he’s making an awkward Sailor Moon pose with his hand lol. I know that isn’t the case but .. maybe that’s just what I would do >.<
Ah man, it’s been long enough that I should just link the cameos with their stories. Maybe tomorrow.
As someone who has lived in SM for less than a day, he’s impeding traffic by walking on the left side of the sidewalk, when he should be on the right. This sin is maybe forgivable because many people who didn’t grow up in large walking cities don’t know to use lanes like cars, but I’ve wished the death penalty on groups of 4 or more tourists who suddenly stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Also the two women who stood at the top of the stairs at Times Square station, blocking me from putting down my large instrument case, while staring and asking “is that a guitar?” (it was not).
Honestly, when people walk on the “wrong” side of the sidewalk, I just assume they’re from a country where they drive on that side of the road lol. Or they’re just an asshole :p I feel the pain.
Hahaha living in a city will def make you hate on vacationers, so I feel you.
LOL omg, so not only are they going to be obnoxious and block you, they’re going to be obnoxious and talk to you like what you have is their business lol. gawd.
I’m just here to stare at the art and also confirm that even in Copenhagen, the capitol of a tiny country like Denmark, if you don’t go by standard traffic rules on the sidewalk, people will react to you funny. And by funny, I mean like you’re an absolute monster.
Scaaaaaaaarf.
I love the free earbuds ad. I hate the earbuds so much. Does anyone ever use them? Ever?
Also I am deeply sorry but these runes bother me. Like, as a Dane, I can’t let this go. What in the elder futhark is going on?
I cannot even decipher the sign over the flaming house, even allowing for the fact that the font is rather extra.
IAPFORHFOZYD??? Something like that? And thats disregarding the futhark and just going by some bonkers fonts. Is it a code? An abbreviation? Not meant to mean anything? Is this like when people use Chinese characters for the πΆππππ½πππΎπΈ? The mystery is killing me, Dr. Llama!
lington an jh zrt – my brain wants this to ALMOST be something like “Lexington Avenue, (number) street.” I don’t know how the NYC subway works. I don’t know how anything works any more. These runes are melting my brain with the need to UNDERSTAND.
rgsfh aeghjk a – cries in Viking
AU
METROCARD – finally something that make sense.
Insert this waythhis size facing you – noooooo, so close!
TO ANYONE READING THIS IN THE FUTURE: Hello from the past! I used the runes because I could not find a single Simlish font online. Siriana is good at finding things and tracked a bunch down for me long ago. It’s cool now. I’ll never use the runes again.
The runes on page 11 confused me so much that I accidentally commented on page 10. Go figure.